


School Nights

by diamondgore



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Drabble, Gen, soft tender moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: Despite their age, Sophie & Quentin feel young again in each other's presence.





	School Nights

**Author's Note:**

> I PROMISE I'M NOT HIGH, this is a cut scene from [my other fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386545)! It was too soft, so I ended up cutting it. 
> 
> This scene is based off this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEBs50lLNdM)!

Outside, the sun was setting, casting a warm golden glow across the garden at the Jean Grey School. From what Sophie had heard, the garden was a new addition, courtesy of Phoebe, Mindee and Celeste, who had to beg Kitty for a garden where they could plant rose bushes. While they weren’t the biggest fans of Emma Frost, this was a way to remember her while she was away, it was vague enough so that no one but them would suspect that it was essentially a shrine for her.

 

Sophie walked down the gravel pathway. The crunching of the rocks against her shoes was louder than she had expected, and she was happy that she had bought a pair of white tennis shoes while out with her sisters, and that she wasn’t stuck wearing flats for the entire day, only God knew how dusty the inside of her shoes would be then. The large hedges that encased the garden were freshly cut, and Sophie could tell from the scent of the air around her. 

 

She continued walking down, the path, following the path to where the rose bushes supposedly were, but along the way, her mind sense familiar energies. Curiosity got the best of her, and she diverted from the path to follow the energies, only to see that they brought her to someone she thought she killed a long time ago. 

 

Quentin was lying in the grass, wearing nothing but his cargo shorts and a plain white shirt. His shoes and socks where to the side of him. He was too busy picking at the blades of grass to hear Sophie approach him. Sophie stood towering above him, and he couldn’t tell who she was until Quentin put his glasses back on. 

 

“Sophie?” He asked. It was in the same innocence that he had five years ago, before he was jailed and heeded as a terrorist. He didn’t act surprised to her existence, of course, he was the one who had wished her alive. He had also heard the whispers down the hall about her, and her sister. It seemed he couldn’t ever escape her. 

 

“Quentin.” She brushed her hair from her eyes. “Your brain is still leaking like the faucets in the girls bathroom I see.” 

 

Quentin sat up in the grass, and then tapped the soft grass next to him. The sprinklers had gone off a long time ago, so the grass was pretty dry, not accounting for the autumn dew. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” 

 

“Because it’s still true.” Sophie got on the grass and then on her knees, next to Quentin. She fixed her pleated skirt to cover up her knees. The grass crunched underneath her. “What are you doing out here?” 

 

“I can ask you the same question.” Quentin said. “I was trying to build a daisy crown. I wanted to do something that would keep my hands busy.” He was honest, and then pulled out the half-built crown from the grass near his shoes. 

 

“I heard we had roses.” Sophie smiled, she was attempting to be friendly, to further differentiate herself from her sisters. While they were a hivemind, they all deserved to have their own ‘thing’, and if Sophie would have to claim being friendly she wouldn’t mind. She always wanted to be a hero, and those people were always kind. 

“Yeah. They haven’t bloomed yet.” Quentin held the daisy crown his hands, looking at how incomplete it was. It was much too small on his head, not that he would’ve worn it. 

 

“That’s a shame.” Conversation between them is awkward. They both have too much and nothing to say at the same time. 

 

“Yeah.” Quentin looked at her, and how the golden sun rays landed on her skin, making her more beautiful than he remembered. Of course, his memory of their brief time together was cloudy and almost faded. He never could trust his brain as he lived his life in state of half-dissociation. It was a side-effect of his mutation. He wanted to put his hand on her cheek and make sure she was real. But that kind of touch was too intimate and too romantic, any way he touched her would overwhelm him. 

 

But she was really here. 

 

“Can I ask something?” Sophie looked away from Quentin, there was something about her question that was too embarrassing to maintain eye contact with him. 

 

“Um, sure?” There was nothing that he knew that Sophie didn’t, other than the intimate details of his life. 

 

“How could you tell me apart from my other sisters? We all look the same.” There was a pining for individuality inside of her.  

 

“It’s easier to tell you guys apart now. Since you all have different hair colors, but your eyes are a little darker than their eyes, and your aura is a little more green than theirs.” Quentin knew why she was looking away now, because he can’t help but stare at his daisy crown. “I paid attention to the details, and you were the one who stood out the most to me. You’re all slightly different.”

 

“I can’t even remember the color of your aura.” 

 

“Neither can I.” Quentin responded with a sigh. 

 

“Why?” 

 

“I got depowered like a month ago. You didn’t hear about it?” 

 

“Awfully presumptuous of you to think I care that much about you.” Sophie said, and then moved her legs out from underneath her so that she could sit on her side. “All I’ve really heard about you was that stunt you pulled at the U.N.” 

 

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved his hand in her general direction. “You heard about the U.N. thing but not my most recent endeavors?” 

 

“Well, my sisters wanted to tell me about how Emma Frost made you spoil your pants. I haven’t been meaning to catch up on the past in all honesty.” 

 

“You’re more of a live in the moment type of girl, now?” Quentin asked looking back at her. She had a small smile on her face, it was barely there. 

 

“Do I have any other option?” She said. “If it makes you feel any better, I thought the U.N. stunt was interesting, although poorly planned.” 

 

“Really?” He felt fifteen-years-old again, trying to impress his crush, his eyes glimmer with hope. “I just didn’t have enough time to fully go through with it, the way I wanted, you know?” 

 

Sophie laughed. “Nothing ever goes the way we want it to.” Her laugh was false, but it still was the only thing she could offer. 

 

“I’m just glad you think it’s cool.” Quentin dropped the daisy chain in his lap, so that he could lean back on the grass and look at the now blue-tinted sky. “At least it impressed someone.”

 

Sophie picked up the half finished daisy crown from his lap. The brush of her hands makes his body spasm, this was real, and he wasn’t just talking to himself. She was busy admiring the crown in her hands, there were only a few ways that one could mess up a flower crown, but Quentin had put an interesting amount of work in it, varying the daisies and clovers in a repeated three to three pattern. 

 

“Miss Frost used to put roses in our hair.” Sophie said holding up the crown to Quentin’s eyeline. “I miss that.” 

 

“I know I’m no Miss Frost, but if you want, I can give you the flower crown. I think it would fit you. ” He moved to get up on his knees, and then took the crown gently from her hands. 

 

“That would be nice.” She said, closing her eyes. 

 

Quentin leaned over, trying to keep some distance between her head and his chest as he tied the clover crown around her head. He was gentle with her, afraid that a harsh move would destroy her. Sophie can feel his nervousness, but decided to not comment on it. She was too old for snide comments about a man she barely knew. He tied the twine somewhat loosely, and then removed his hands, getting back on his knees.

 

Sophie opened her eyes, and this time gave Quentin a genuine smile. “Thank you.” 

 

“No problem. You look pretty.” He was stumbling over his own words, like his brain was blanking. 

 

Sophie brushed the hair off her shoulder, and then adjusted the crown. “How long did you spend on it?” 

 

Quentin shrugged. “Just a few hours. It was hard to find all the four leaf clovers.” He was still awfully close to her, and was only now self conscious about whether his breath smelled, or whether he was just overflowing with Axe body spray. 

 

“I don’t believe for a second that you spend hours on this.” 

 

“Hey, you can read my mind, I’m not lying.” Quentin said. 

 

The darkness was finally approaching, and the automatic lights in the garden turned on. They were illuminated by the dim yellow lights. Neither of them wanted to move, there was more to say, but this was not the situation to say it in. This moment was tender: the grass, the soft breeze and the view of unbloomed roses. 

 

However, Quentin always found a way to be inappropriate. 

 

“I’m sorry.” He was apologizing for everything and nothing in particular. “You didn’t deserve it.” 

 

“I don’t have anything to say.” She responded honestly. “I can’t be bitter, you know? Maybe it was better that I was dead instead of suffering in jail.” 

 

“I thought you---”

 

“Your thoughts are louder than you think they are.” Sophie interrupted. “That was always your biggest flaw.”

 

Quentin didn’t feel better. He somehow only felt worse with the fact that Sophie wasn’t mad about the situation. It made him feel insignificant, that he could kill someone and she wouldn’t care. 

 

“It was a little silly for you to try to pull off the riot. But what we both did was awful.” She said, extending her hand, placing it in between him and her, as if she was too ashamed to touch him. “I  _ almost _ killed you too.” 

 

That was a fair argument, but Quentin was still convinced she hated him. “So what do we do?” He asked. 

 

“Only a fresh start would be fair.” 

  
  



End file.
